Sabres Brass at Dinner

[topshelfcookies]

My Dad's architectural firm belongs to The Buffalo Club, which is pretty much an old man's hangout down on Delaware Ave in downtown Buffalo. Most people that are members are there simply through their firm and take clients there for dinner or drinks to schmooze.

 

Anyways, once in a while The Buffalo Club does something cool, which happened Thursday night. Sports Night was held, and Larry Quinn, Darcy Regier and Lindy Ruff (as well as an NHL on-ice referee) attended a dinner with about 200 club members. I didn't attend, but got a pretty complete recap from my dad. Here's some highlights:

 

What Lindy said:

Max will dress vs Pittsburgh Friday night

Miller should be ready Monday

Lindy didn't personally want to pull Marty on the game ending PP vs Ottawa, but instead deferred to the Assistant Coaches, who argued in favor of it. Lindy explained that on a 6-4 situation with an empty net, 1 man is simply stationed directly in front of the crease the entire time, regardless of where the puck is, allowing the other 5 guys to pretty much move freely and create scoring chances.

The reason for the Sabres' success is that they simply are the hardest working team he has ever been around. He said "You have no idea, and I can't find a way to convey just how hard these guys work at what they do."

 

What Darcy said:

Stafford is staying with the team, once Max returns. For this to work, Lindy will announce "some type of upper or lower body to a player" on Friday.

 

When asked about managing a team in the cap era, responded by saying: The way to manage a team with the cap in the new NHL is that you simply have to make a lot of choices. The Sabres have established that goaltending is their #1 priority - to make sure there is a definitive #1 goalie, and a viable #2 back-up. After goaltending, mobile defensemen are the next most important. Forwards come last. (Interesting to hear him spell it out like that, AND it makes you wonder if they'll actually move Marty this season?)

 

When asked what to expect in the coming years with the cap:

Expect more teams to create NFL style contracts, about 7 year contracts, and then the team restructures the deal after 3-4 years or releases the player before the end of the contract is reached.

 

What Larry said:

Raved about Tom Golisano.

About 3 days after Game 7 of the ECF, Golisano called up Quinn and invited him, Darcy and Lindy down to Florida "to relax and recharge". He promised them use of his swimming pool, tennis courts, etc. Larry said that he packed his swim trunks and tennis racket, and didn't see anything more than the inside of Golisano's private office for 3 days. All they did was just talk about everything - from ticket prices to the locker room to salary cap to the type of food served for the players to parking garage prices, etc. Quinn said that he has never worked with a more detail-oriented person than Golisano.

 

Gave the following anecdote: Just after Golisano purchased the team, the Sabres ended up getting mired in an 8 game losing streak. Golisano called a meeting of coaches, Regier, Quinn etc, and proceeded to ask: "Who's the creative one in this room?" Everyone just sort of looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Golisano was simply wondering if there was a different way of looking at how to get out of their slump, rather than taking a more traditional method.

 

When Golisano purchased the team, there were around 5,800 season ticket holders. As everyone knows, they capped season ticket holders at around 14,000 this season, but could have kept selling them.

 

When asked about "how we ended up with a hamster as a logo" Quinn said that really what happened is this. The NHL is going to be mandating that EVERY team next year modify their uniforms to comply with new mandatory equipment specs. He said that the Sabres are "simply a year ahead" of the rest of the league. They wanted to go back to the blue and gold, and rather than introducing a new jersey/logo this year, then revamping them next season, they simply did it all this year.

 

In 2005 the SabreStore grossed $150,000 in the month of October.

In 2006, the SabreStore grossed $850,000 in the month of October.

[eball]

Good stuff; thanks. I wonder, did Darcy's "Lindy will announce an upper or lower body to somebody on Friday" comment draw big laughs?

 

Also, Quinn's answer to the hamster question still didn't address the logo itself. I don't think the NHL is mandating hamster or slug-like logos to the rest of the league. ;)

[BetweenThePipes00]

If there is another injury to announce, maybe Roy is going to have to miss some time after blocking that shot the other night. Lindy said X-rays were nagative but ... never know ...

Or maybe they pulled a Gillooly on Peters so they could put him on long-term IR and clear cap space for Stafford. ;)

[All Along The Watchtower]

That is nice inside intel...love reading this type of stuff. Many thanks for sharing.

[Taro T]

...

 

What Darcy said:

Stafford is staying with the team, once Max returns. For this to work, Lindy will announce "some type of upper or lower body to a player" on Friday.

 

When asked about managing a team in the cap era, responded by saying: The way to manage a team with the cap in the new NHL is that you simply have to make a lot of choices. The Sabres have established that goaltending is their #1 priority - to make sure there is a definitive #1 goalie, and a viable #2 back-up. After goaltending, mobile defensemen are the next most important. Forwards come last. (Interesting to hear him spell it out like that, AND it makes you wonder if they'll actually move Marty this season?)

 

When asked what to expect in the coming years with the cap:

Expect more teams to create NFL style contracts, about 7 year contracts, and then the team restructures the deal after 3-4 years or releases the player before the end of the contract is reached.

 

...

 

In 2005 the SabreStore grossed $150,000 in the month of October.

In 2006, the SabreStore grossed $850,000 in the month of October.

Thanks for the info. It was a good read.

 

A couple of points about Darcy's comments. The forwards coming last is actually centers come 3rd and wingers come last. (He's stated that in interviews on several occasions.)

 

Also, although I can see teams releasing players before the end of their contracts if they are given long ones, the current CBA does NOT allow for ANY restructuring of contracts. Of course, it only runs for about 5 more years, so Darcy may be anticipating some changes in the next CBA.

 

The merchandise info is interesting. The $150k doesn't surprise me at all and I doubt the team made much profit on that $150k as all of the CCM / Koho sweaters were on very steep discounts (bought the wife a proweight Vanek for about 1/2 price).

 

The $850k, at 1st glance seems high, but if 10,000 people bought on average $85 worth of stuff, you're there. I bought about $40 worth of clearanced t-shirts, so I can see that it's possible (especially when end of September sales are included, as I'd guess they are).

 

It'd be interesting to see how numbers end up comparing for the rest of the season, but I'd guess those will be hard to come by.

[matter2003]

Thanks for the info. It was a good read.

 

A couple of points about Darcy's comments. The forwards coming last is actually centers come 3rd and wingers come last. (He's stated that in interviews on several occasions.)

 

Also, although I can see teams releasing players before the end of their contracts if they are given long ones, the current CBA does NOT allow for ANY restructuring of contracts. Of course, it only runs for about 5 more years, so Darcy may be anticipating some changes in the next CBA.

 

The merchandise info is interesting. The $150k doesn't surprise me at all and I doubt the team made much profit on that $150k as all of the CCM / Koho sweaters were on very steep discounts (bought the wife a proweight Vanek for about 1/2 price).

 

The $850k, at 1st glance seems high, but if 10,000 people bought on average $85 worth of stuff, you're there. I bought about $40 worth of clearanced t-shirts, so I can see that it's possible (especially when end of September sales are included, as I'd guess they are).

 

It'd be interesting to see how numbers end up comparing for the rest of the season, but I'd guess those will be hard to come by.

 

Considering that the Sabres had the top selling jersey in Miller and the 3rd selling jersey in Afinigenov at the NHL.com store I wouldn't doubt that they sold that much---also there aws a 1200%(yes that's correct, 1200!!) increase in Sabres merchandise being sold on that site, so the SAbres shop isn't the only place selling a lot more Sabres gear..

[mrjsbu96]

What, no review on what each of them ordered or if Quinn kept leaning over the table to ask Lindy "are you going to eat your fat?" :lol:

[PTS]

Stafford is staying with the team, once Max returns. For this to work, Lindy will announce "some type of upper or lower body to a player" on Friday.

 

Great post! From the looks of it, I'm pretty sure this "injured" player will be Derek Roy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Considering that the Sabres had the top selling jersey in Miller and the 3rd selling jersey in Afinigenov at the NHL.com store I wouldn't doubt that they sold that much---also there aws a 1200%(yes that's correct, 1200!!) increase in Sabres merchandise being sold on that site, so the SAbres shop isn't the only place selling a lot more Sabres gear..

What I would hate to happen here, is that the Slug get any credit whatsoever in the jump in merchandise sales....it's WINNING, pure and simple, that's driving up the sales and if Quinney thinks it's his great Slug doing the trick, he's gravely mistaken.

 

Look, you could put a turd on a blue and gold sweatshirt and sell it with a 10-0 start...it's the winning, nothing else. Christ, the black and red Goathead would be flying off the shelves with a 10-0 start!

[nfreeman]

Top Shelf -- great post. thanks. The main point I took away from it is a sense of confidence in the strength of the organization. What a turnaround from a few years ago. This team is solid as a rock. A lot of things can happen on the ice, esp. injuries, but I don't see this team missing the playoffs in consecutive years again with this group in charge.

[topshelfcookies]

I'm glad you guys appreciated the post...I wasn't sure how it would be received.

 

nfreeman, I think you're right on about the "sense of confidence in the strength of the organization". My dad said that while all of them seemed so confident with where they are at, and where they are heading, he said Darcy and Lindy especially kept hammering home the idea that the focus is simply on the next game.

 

I didn't really add much about what the ref, Dennis LaRue said, but here's some stuff.

 

The first game that Lindy coached with the Sabres, LaRue was reffing, and Lindy, surprise surprise, disagreed with a call. He calls LaRue over to the bench and says "Hey Dennis! You're French Canadian right?" LaRue responds, yes. "So you spell your name with one 'i', right?" LaRue concurs. "WELL QUIT CALLING THE GAME LIKE THAT"

LaRue quipped after the story that little did Lindy know that him calling the game with one eye was "pretty rare. Normally I don't look at the players at all"

 

LaRue stated that the officials have simply been instructed by the league to call everything that they see, no matter who it's on, what point in the game it is, whether it will put 3 men in the box, or is the 5th straight penalty vs a particular team, in regulation or overtime.

 

LaRue also explained diving. He said that in years past, if players knew that the opposing team was "due" for a penalty, they would often embelish to help the refs make a call. LaRue said that you're seeing more diving calls now because there's no need for a player to dive - if the refs see the penalty they'll call it. He said that the majority of diving calls are being made when the ref already has his arm up, signaling a penalty, yet a player will try to embelish anyways. He siad the reason there is such a focus on diving is because the league basically wants to give the game back to the refs to officiate, and not be swayed as much by the crowd, players or game situation.

 

LaRue also said that from his perspective the Sabres are one of the most interesting teams to watch. He also commented that the city of Buffalo can be very proud of the way that the team represents the city. He was excited for tomorrow's game, simply because he said that there are few arena's in the league that have as good of an atmosphere as Buffalo has had this season.

 

Also I forgot to mention something that Darcy said. Jim Kelley, the sportsnet.ca writer (and former Buffalo News guru) was there and asked Darcy if he would vote in favor of a rule against hits to the head. Darcy said that he would vote in favor of such a rule, but also cautioned saying that the game is so fast now that it's difficult sometimes to avoid such a hit. He stated that while people have been saying the new NHL is a return to the wide open game of the 70's and early 80's, he said that's not really fair, because he believes that the game is much faster than it was then.

[Hirly5]

When asked about "how we ended up with a hamster as a logo" Quinn said that really what happened is this. The NHL is going to be mandating that EVERY team next year modify their uniforms to comply with new mandatory equipment specs. He said that the Sabres are "simply a year ahead" of the rest of the league. They wanted to go back to the blue and gold, and rather than introducing a new jersey/logo this year, then revamping them next season, they simply did it all this year.

Nice Post.

 

I find this hard to believe. I guess it is what they define as modify whether it be colors, logo, etc. or something small. I don't see teams like Toronto, Boston, or Detroit modifying there current looks to something extremely different ala the Sabres and Ducks.

 

I will be very interested to see what kind modifications will be made to uniforms.

[X. Benedict]

My Dad's architectural firm belongs to The Buffalo Club......

Great stuff TSC. It is very interesting to hear what level of involvement Tom G has.

I have a feeling he is surprised at how much fun he is having owning the Sabres.

[bills_fan_in_raleigh]

Darcy is a great guy. In the early canes days ( in greensboro) I had a chance to sit and talk with darcy thru an entire period and intermission. We talked about hockey surviving in the south especially carolinas, overall raleigh nc area, golf, weather, hockey, players etc. I was amazed how approachable he was, I just noticed him sitting in stands alone at the time and asked I f I could sit down and chat. Later james patrik, danny gare and others came by. I attained many hat signings that day.

[Larry Playfair]

great insight and info. Thanks.

 

I am proud of this team and organization.

[Corp000085]

Darcy, Tom, and Lindy are great guys... Same goes for Larry, yes, even for all the crap we dump on him. If you ever get a chance to eat in the harbor club 200 before the games, you'll see larry mingling and sitting with people at the tables. Hockey's a big business, but it's a small town feeling right from the top down for the Buffalo Sabres... Has been since 1970, save a few years after the Knox's died.